


Better Together

by Just_Bay



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Afghanistan, Canon Compliant, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Iron Man 1, Oneshot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-09
Updated: 2019-03-09
Packaged: 2019-11-14 06:43:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18047525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Just_Bay/pseuds/Just_Bay
Summary: The things Marvel didn't show us.The moments between the scene changes.The conversations after the credits rolled and we had to walk away.These are entirely cannon-compliant one shots, written to fill in the little moments that make the Avengers human (mostly - jury is still out on Vision) (and Thor is sketchy too).





	1. Afghanistan

**Author's Note:**

> This first chapter is set in the time period between Rhodey finding Tony crashed in the desert and Tony stepping off the plane to see Pepper back in the States. 
> 
> I'm considering doing this in a repeating sequence with each one-shot coming from a different MCU film but we'll see what happens.
> 
> Enjoy!

The blistering sun was relentless outside the window of the dull room Tony sat in, lost in thought. While it was cool enough inside, the hazy shimmering of heat floating up from the black asphalt was captivating what little amount of brain power he had available, and he had no idea how long he’d been staring. He didn’t care.

_My weapons did this_.

“You can go outside, Tony,” Rhodes had said, mistaking his unending staring out the window for longing, “this isn’t a prison.”

Tony hadn’t answered. It might as well have been.

There had been plenty of reasons to stay inside as of late. The heat of the Afghani desert, for one. Not to mention his abused body, still aching with something deeper than pain. There was safety in these not-cave walls.

This may not have been prison, but he was still caged.

“Do you wanna talk about it?” Rhodes spoke quietly, his unusually unobtrusive form relaxing as much as possible into the plastic chair to the right of Tony’s uncomfortable bed. “You don’t have to tell me everything, but what are you thinking right now?”

_Terrorists have my weapons._

The dull weight of loss rolled over his still-drugged body in another terrible wave, his very being powerless against the pounding regret. _Yinsen_. When was the last time pain had felt like this? Was this what losing his mother had felt like? Was he really this close to choking on his unnamed emotions last time, too? He needed a drink.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

They sit in a drugged silence for a few more moments, Rhodey clearly unwilling to leave Tony’s bedside but desiring to be anywhere else. Tony was too out of it to stop staring that the stupid shimmering heat waves rolling off the tarmac or to feel anything other than the heaviness in his scarred chest.

It was Tony who spoke next, to the surprise of them both. “How’s Pepper?” he managed, his thoughts not cohesive enough for him to make sense of quite yet, but the mental image of her with a new job and a new boss and _not there_ not being one that appealed to him.

“She’ll be waiting for you when we land in the States.”

The silence returns, Tony still staring out that too-bright window. Rhodes breathes deeply through his nose, dropping his head into his hands and shifting forward to lean his elbows on his knees, frustration and weariness evident in the set of his shoulders. “Wheels up in an hour. You’d better start thinking about what you’re going to tell the press when they ask what happened.”

_Tell them we’re done making weapons_.

Rhodey’s words are said like a closing statement, like the not-real conversation they were sort-of having has now ended, but the Colonel still doesn’t stand. It makes for a slightly more uncomfortable silence, Tony thinks, but there are planes moving around outside now and it’s easier to watch those through the heat than to process Yinsen and the Ten Rings and Pepper and _pain_.

Breathing still hurt. 

Watching Yinsen die still hurt.

His mind is still thinking in disorienting images but clarity begins form around three simple words: _no more weapons_. Stark Industries without weapons is another picture he doesn’t know how to process (is there even a way to process a weapons company ceasing the production of weapons?) but those three words become a mental mantra, guiding his slowly (very slowly) returning thought processes into a future-shaping realization.

Tony moves his hand absentmindedly to his chest, circling the metal casing for the arc reactor gently. The pain is still there, of course, physical and otherwise. But there is something else there now, something an almost insignificant amount lighter and clearer than the pain, and his head fills with a single image of the flying suit, now wrecked into pieces somewhere in the sand.

“I’m going to check on the flight prep and make some phone calls.” Rhodes gives him a pointed look that Tony ignores in his peripherals. He was too busy thinking through the drugs in his system and staring at the shiny air outside to protest, not that he would have anyway.

The future, mental Tony he saw in his drug addled head was a far cry from the one he’d been prior to now. Different in ways he couldn’t quite grasp yet, but good different.

_I can do better than making things that blow up_ … 

The idea of the metal suit washes over his conscious, settling a layer of responsibility and potential on his overburdened mind. The picture of it rising, of an aircraft without wings, a tool of purpose to balance a lifetime of apathy, is enough to break his incessant gaze out the window and refocus on the cement walls of his room. He had work to do.

It was time to go.


	2. July Fourth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These first two chapters are both kinda angsty, I promise we'll be lightening up shortly.
> 
> Vague inspiration for this came from the song "You Should Be Here" by Cole Swindell. 
> 
> Enjoy!  
> ______________________________________________________________

“He should be here.” The man beside her sighed and her words, the weary and haggard look unwavering in his haunted eyes.

“We’re doing all we can.”

“I know.” She gave a half-hearted smile at the skeptic look he shot her. “I _do_ know. It’s just hard having everyone together again, celebrating the war that he basically ended, all together on his birthday, no less…. I just wish he didn’t have to miss this.” She finished quietly.

Howard turned his dark eyes back to the scene below them, his demeanor uncharacteristically subdued. A characteristic that was slowly becoming more and more normal, Peggy noticed. He wasn’t the same man she’d known in the heart of the war, his genius mind and extensive flight skills becoming less and less diverse and more destructive with a single goal driving him forward.

How could she blame him, though, when the single thought driving him to depression was the same one that kept her lying awake for hours into the night so regularly she had given up trying to sleep?

They remained silent, unwilling to repeat the same circular conversations that had dominated their every interaction since the Red Skull was destroyed, observing the party happening on the beach below them with an unwitting emotional detachment. It was one thing for her to be up here, away from her joyous comrades celebrating the end of the war, but it was another thing for Howard to be away. It was his party, after all.

For lack of anything better to distract herself with, Peggy studied the mix of people on the beach below the balcony. It was a strange combination - but then again, Stark had always thrived on strange combinations. His latest involved bringing together the remainder of the Howling Commandos and throwing them in with an eclectic mixture of politicians, war veterans, and personal friends. She sighed deeply.

When did today start feeling less like the fourth of July and more like Steve’s birthday?

If she imagined hard enough and used the darkness of the evening to her advantage, she could almost see Steve standing in the circle of Howling Commandos, a beer in his hand and a smile on his face, as the waves crashed on the shore in the background. People laughed and talked and there were even a few couples dancing to the wireless Howard had arranged for on the patio. The scene below them, with the bonfire and the people and the water and the muted colors of the night, was just so _Steve_ that it hurt to know that he wasn’t down there.

Hence, neither was she.

“He would have loved this.” The too familiar tightness in her throat wouldn’t allow her to say anything else, and she didn’t try. She’d had enough fighting to last her a lifetime, there was no sense in battling tears now.

“Today’s his birthday, right?” Howard asked, already knowing the answer. Tonight had Steve written all over it. “I tried to make it something for him, like a… memorial or something. I don’t know.” He dropped his head into his hands where they rested on the pristine wooden railing. “Some days it feels like the war never ended. This was supposed to be a good year.”

They were both unwilling to give voice to what had made the last year far from a good one. Not trusting herself to speak, to agree with him that they had won and that was good, but to question him why it was Steve that had gone down and not been here to celebrate, Peggy let the silence fall over them again, running her hands along the smooth wood. Howard didn’t have the answers she wanted to hear.

The sliding door leading to the house slid open behind them and Maria’s graceful and poised form stepped out, quietly closing the door behind her. She stopped at the railing where they stood, not saying a word, as if she knew that their private party of two was as much (or maybe more) for grieving as it was for celebrating.

Howard stepped behind her, wrapping his arms around his fiancé's waist from the back, holding her between the railing and his tired body as though she were his lifeline to all that was still worth fighting for now that the war was over. The motion brought the tightness back to Peggy’s throat; Steve should have his arms around her that way. He should have been here. He shouldn’t have had to miss this new world they were trying to build.

Without warning, the night sky above the beach exploded into color, the echo of the blast drowned out by the next explosion immediately following. Fire of all colors, predominantly red, white and blue, showered the beach in impressive temporary flashes of light.

Peggy stood stiffly on Howard’s private balcony, slightly in awe (though she wouldn’t admit it) at the colorful array the man beside her had pulled together. Although, if he had been thinking of Steve while he planned it, like he had mentioned before, she supposed she shouldn’t have been too surprised. Stark never did anything halfway.

The fireworks were met with mixed reactions down on the beach. Most people just gazed up at the dark sky with wide eyes, awe evident on their half-lit faces. Others were stiff, unyielding against the too recent memories of gunfire and grenades, unwilling to let the beautiful colors above them take them back to the horrors behind them.

When the finale ended several minutes later, the sky returned to its deep black, and the explosions had been banished back into the recesses of their minds, several choruses of “HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY” rang out among the gathered guests. She raised her eyes from the beach to the horizon, inky black and hazy from the leftover smoke, ignoring the silent presence of Howard and Maria to her left.

Her throat closed tight again.

_Happy birthday, Steve. I wish you didn’t have to miss this._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think!
> 
> -Bay

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think – leave a review! Have a great weekend!
> 
> \- Bay


End file.
